Breakthroughs
by acmac
Summary: Starfleet officers activated him, and told him he was an android — nothing more than a sophisticated machine with human form. He found that difficult to accept. So he chose to believe that he was a person. And sometimes, others chose to believe it, too.
1. Left Field

_o\O/o_

When her defeated team had finally passed out of earshot, Biju kicked the dirt behind the batter's box and swore. The fine soil of Omicron Theta billowed up slowly in a gentle cloud, serene and slightly pink-tinted and totally unsatisfying. She kicked it again, anyway.

Over by the on-deck circle, her Benzite friend Nhoe shouldered the equipment bag and tossed her special bat — rare t'tawlish wood, dark at the grip from many years of sweaty hands — at her. She caught it just in time and glared. The inner barbels above his lips curled upward in what she knew to be a grin.

"You really need to stop expecting to win, Cap," he said.

"I don't _expect_ to win. But it'd be nice every once in a while. At this point I'd settle for not getting completely thrashed."

Nhoe shrugged. "You know how it is. The 'ficial teams are mostly older and definitely… well… you know."

Yes, Biju knew. Her little team was cobbled together from the kids who hadn't made the cut into the official league. Nhoe had been disqualified due to poor endurance — the need for his respirator limited his stamina. But his double thumbs made him the best pitcher in the colony; he could throw a knuckleball to make you cry.

From the colony's perspective, sports served a purely utilitarian function: the development of strategic and cooperative skills within the context of beneficial physical conditioning. But Biju, who had chafed since birth against her community's single-minded devotion to academics, didn't see it that way. Baseball was an end unto itself, and it was hard to swallow defeat after defeat when she knew none of her supremely _logical_ opponents, none of them, _loved_ the game like she did.

She walked a few steps away and looked off in the direction her demoralized players had gone. Nhoe joined her and slung an arm around her shoulders — a gesture he had learned from her. "C'mon. Help me pack up."

He deactivated the batter's box and foul-line forcefields, turning back toward the diamond. Suddenly he froze, mouth open, gaping at something behind Biju. She turned to look and was startled by the sight of a lone figure which had appeared out of nowhere and was standing atop the pitcher's mound. She squinted against the setting sun and saw that, even more alarmingly, it was Soong's crazy nudist android.

_Where the hell did _that_ come from?_

It was watching them. Biju watched it back, thoughtfully swinging her bat in a one-handed, vertical circle.

The android wore only a rough shirt, too big for its wiry frame, which covered its torso to just below the navel. Assuming it _had_ a navel — it certainly had everything else.

_Well, at least it got half-way today, _she thought, unperturbed — even amused. Her parents were physicians and they found the other colonists' squeamishness about android-bits irrational and prudish. The android's feet were bare, too, grass stains vibrant against its pale ankles. When they made eye contact it held an arm out stiffly toward them, a dirty baseball resting in its upturned palm.

"I discovered this spherical accoutrement of recreation in the grass, approximately 18.38 meters southwest of my present location. Do you wish to acquire it?"

Biju cleared her throat.

"Oh. Uh, thanks."

It tilted its head sharply. "Invalid command. Restate."

"Huh?"

It repeated itself at half speed and double volume, the faint metallic dissonance under its voice becoming more pronounced. Still and silent as a statue, it waited for a response.

Stumped, Biju glanced at Nhoe, who shrugged.

"Okay, sure, toss it over," the boy said.

Snake-quick, the android snapped back its arm and threw. Biju and Nhoe ducked instinctively, but needlessly. The ball flew high in a perfectly vertical backspin. The android lifted its face to follow its flight, and didn't react when the ball plummeted and struck it squarely on its upturned nose. It stooped to pick retrieve it, held it out to them again, and began walking.

"You are beyond my current range of accuracy. Increasing proximity accordingly."

Nhoe let out a squeaking gasp at the rapid approach and slapped the bench-post to reactivate the forcefield. The android didn't seem to notice; when its outstretched hand made contact with the barrier it kept walking in place, powerful feet carving dents in the dirt. After several steps it desisted.

"Expected task unclear," it said, again cocking its head at an angle that would have pained a human. "Citizens Biju Farland and Nhoe Ek: what is it you wish of me?"

Somehow Biju found herself charmed by the soft-spoken inquiry — and, for some reason, a little sheepish. Nhoe must have, too; after a brief pause he reached over and deactivated the forcefield once more. The android stepped forward and lowered its hand to within easy reach of the children. Nhoe took the ball, hesitating an instant before letting his fingers brush curiously against the pale palm. His uni-browbone rose in surprise.

"You're _warm_," he said. At the same time, Biju asked, "How do you know our names?"

"My bioplast sheeting is designed to approximate human body temperature." Its strange eyes flicked to Biju. "I am programmed with a comprehensive index of the colony's demographics."

Biju barely absorbed his answers, a little rattled by the instantaneous responses, delivered without the padding of pauses, or shifts in inflection. She was also thinking that it was one thing to see a naked man from a distance, and quite another to be within arm's length of one. She cleared her throat.

"So… um, are you programmed for, like, super stellar stealth, too? 'Cause I swear you just... came out of _nowhere_."

"My approach was not deliberately furtive. And I 'came out' of what is designated 'left field.'"

Biju and Nhoe laughed — perhaps a little more loudly than they would have under more comfortable circumstances. The android's yellow gaze seemed to grow even more intent, boring into them, and their laughter came to an awkward halt. Nhoe explained that "out of left field" was in fact another expression, synonymous with "out of nowhere." The android gave a perfunctory nod at this before returning to the earlier conversation as if it had never been interrupted.

"From a more abstract perspective, however, my artificial nature might make the phrase 'came out of nowhere' a more accurate description for me than for organic beings." It paused, pale eyes scanning back and forth in a vaguely unsettling way. They steadied again and settled on Biju. "Then again, it might instead be considered _less_ accurate." It turned its gaze to Nhoe. "An intriguing philosophical quandary."

"Yeah. Intriguing."

Biju shifted her weight and glanced at Nhoe, who nodded earnestly.

_"Very_ intriguing."

The trio fell into silence. Nhoe, who had a knack for mechanical engineering, was marveling at the android's feet; he was more impressed with its physical construction than with its positronic programming. Biju was searching the pale, smooth, impassive face. They locked eyes, and she noticed that since they'd all become quiet, his _(his?) _bright golden gaze had... softened, somehow.

_What is going on in there?_

During the android's extended speech she had also noticed strange hitches in the simulated voice. Grammatical basics sounded passably human, as did the words "artificial," "accurate," and "organic." Sounded, in fact, like a monotone version of the voice of his creator, Often Wro — Dr. Soong. (Biju's parents always corrected her when she used the pejorative nickname; unlike most of the colonists they still had faith in the sharp-tongued, wild-haired cyberneticist.) But the words "perspective" and "intriguing" were underlaid with that shrill metallic friction — and "philosophical" had a particularly laborious grind to it.

Suddenly his eyes sharpened again and snapped in an almost audible blink. Without another word he walked swiftly past them toward the darkening east. They turned to watch him go, and Biju was struck by the swing of his comically long arms. She suddenly remembered that he had thrown the ball with his left hand.

"Hey, android!"

The retreating figure halted mid-step.

"You ever played baseball?"

_o\O/o_


	2. Once More, with Feeling

_o\O/o_

"Is it time yet?"

"Not yet."

Three minutes of silence.

"What about now?"

"Almost."

Five minutes of silence.

"What about now?"

"Shut up, kid."

Ten breathless, squirming minutes of silence.

_"Now?"_

Noonien Soong didn't answer; he was holding his breath, too. He made one final microscopic adjustment and closed the access port with a delicate nudge. He straightened and eased away from the upright construction cylinder, grimacing as he stretched. Then he nodded.

"Now."

He reached around and flipped the switch.

There was no hitch, no crude rattling; Soong's first attempts had stumbled and sputtered like antique fuel-engines for days, sometimes weeks, after activation. Nor was there the slow, almost dreamy awakening of his first _real_ success: the android who now stood beside him, speechless with awe.

Instead, this new model had snapped smoothly to attention and now held himself in perfect stillness, save for the flicker of his yellow eyes working to bring the two rapt faces before him into focus.

Soong reached to the side and put his hand on the shoulder of his elder creation.

"Well, Lore. Say hello to your baby brother."

_o\O/o_


	3. Decency

_o\O/o_

"What do you mean, you've never been hiking?"

The question echoed softly through the Jeffries tube, and Geordi turned away from the exposed plasma manifold to look at his new friend.

"I mean that I have never engaged in prolonged, recreational ambulation in a wilderness setting."

"For Pete's sake, Data. You grew up throwing distance from the Charitum Montes. Didn't they ever take you on—field trips or anything, at Daystrom?"

"If by 'field' you mean an open outdoor space, either naturally occurring or agricultural in purp—"

"No — hand me that flow sensor — I _mean_, getting out of the lab and into the wild, blazing trails, getting in touch with nature. You know?"

Geordi smiled a little as he activated the tool. A few weeks ago Data would have objected to the expression "grew up." He wasn't sure whether this change was due to the android adjusting to being treated like a person, or whether Geordi had just worn him down. Either way, Geordi counted it as a victory.

Data was nodding. "I believe I understand. I did occasionally express a wish to explore the wildernesses of Utopia Planitia, as 'communion with nature' seems to be a primal need for many humans. But my overseers at the Daystrom Institute deemed it unnecessary to my computational development."

Geordi harrumphed through his nose. "Well, at the Academy, then. San Francisco! You must've gone to the beach with your quartmates, or gone to see the redwoods, or—"

Data shook his head.

"Surfing? Rock climbing? Kayaking?"

"I have observed that such structured group recreation tends to grow naturally out of mutual appreciation between individuals, established first through more casual interaction. I achieved only minimal success in the forging of consistently cordial relationships, and subsequently found my presence in social settings to be generally... unwelcome."

Geordi replaced a cover panel a little more forcefully than necessary. "Yeah well, it was their loss, Data."

His own father had said that to him as a young boy, when some of his schoolmates teased (or just ignored) the kid with the funny eyes. It hadn't really helped, but now he understood why his dad had kept saying it.

He had felt an immediate kinship with the android; it wasn't long after they'd met that Geordi had decided to try and make up for twenty-odd years' worth of Data getting the word "machine" drilled into him. At first it was because of his own fundamental kindness, but more and more it was because he really _liked_ the guy.

"One must consider that at that time my social development was in its infancy. Nuances of facial and verbal expression were beyond me. I was unaware that certain topics were commonly regarded as inappropriate for public conversation. My grasp of humor was even more dire than it is now." Data finished inputting feedback from the power relays into his tricorder. "The word 'buzzkill' was frequently employed." Data lowered his voice and broke eye contact with Geordi. "As were the words 'dangerous' and 'freak.'"

Geordi stole a glance at Data's impassive profile. He was beginning to suspect that Data's renowned "inability" to feel emotion was, well, bullshit. The pale, gentle face was plenty expressive _now_. You could write it off as adaptive imitation programming, but Geordi felt sure there was more to it than that. His visor picked up minute changes in shape and movement that would have been imperceptible to anyone else, and he frequently noticed subtle changes in Data's face — microexpressions, essentially — that suggested suppression or dissonance of feeling. Genius though Soong was, Geordi doubted this was mere programming.

"And I should in fairness add that even had I been invited, I would not have wished to engage in any of the various aquatic activities you have mentioned."

"How come?"

"My modesty subroutine would have objected to the minimalist configuration of the requisite attire."

"Really? Come to think of it, I've never seen you out of uniform. Huh. I mean, that's a little _extreme_, don't you think?"

"The subroutine has been... strongly reinforced by experience. At the Daystrom Institute there was a pronounced disregard for my preferences in this area. Later, at the Academy, I observed that in public settings the sight of my body in any state of undress elicited either a sudden vacating of my immediate vicinity, or a curiosity that was… undesirably aggressive."

"Wow. Well, that's a whole other conversation entirely. _Wow_."

A whole troop of microexpressions had paraded over Data's face since their discussion had taken this turn. But now he'd slipped back into his default neutrality.

"I believe I would prefer to return to our original topic of discussion."

_Fair enough. But someday we _**are** _gonna have that conversation._

Geordi cleared his throat.

"So you've never even been _swimming?"_

"That is correct."

"That's it. Next shore leave, you're coming with me, and we're going sailing."

_o\O/o_

The waters of Devala Lake were as clear and calm as promised. Geordi's knowledge of ancient seafaring stood them in good stead; he worked the small ship's sails with enthusiasm and skill as Data sat primly in the stern.

"Get a whiff of that air! Nothing like breeze off the water on a sunny day!"

"I perceive how the organic olfactory apparatus would find it most stimulating."

Geordi laughed big and happy, and Data brightened, clearly hoping he'd said something amusing.

Geordi steered them to a warm pocket a couple kilometers from the western shore. They engaged the magnetic stabilizer and Geordi stripped to his trunks, tangling himself up in his shirt in his hurry. He slapped on his custom-made visor-goggles, which sealed to his skin with a dull _thump_.

"Woo-hoooo!"

He cannonballed into the water with a terrific splash, and came up grinning.

"This is great, Data!" He flipped over and swam under the boat, scattering some small fishes that were nibbling curiously at the keel. He surfaced off the opposite bow, and saw Data's back leaning out over the other side, still looking at the spot where Geordi had disappeared. He gathered an armful of water and threw it into the air, spattering the android.

"BOO!"

Data's head whipped around, and Geordi laughed as he clambered back onto the deck.

"This is a perfect day for swimming," he said contentedly. He didn't want to push Data—especially in light of their earlier conversation. But he was hoping to give his friend a new experience, a positive experience—a _fun_ experience. If nothing else, he could say the trip had finally gotten Data out of uniform, though the outfit he'd had replicated for himself was essentially _another_ uniform, albeit one made of blue, water-resistant material.

"Think you'll give it a try?" Geordi asked casually.

Data looked at him, then at the water, then back at Geordi.

"Yes."

And with that, Data kicked off his regulation boots, walked to the edge of the boat, and stepped off. He tilted forward gracelessly, then disappeared with hardly a splash. Alarmed, Geordi poked his head over the side and peered into the water. As always, his visor detected the glow of Data's electromagnetic halo, but it faded almost instantly to nothing. The immersion must have triggered an automatic shutdown. Or worse.

"Goddammit it!"

Geordi dove into the water and whipped himself around scanning back, forth, back, and around again. He'd expected to see his friend, adrift and unconscious, a couple meters down. But there was nothing. He swam up, erupted out of the water and climbed back onto the boat. A hot gush of profanity had risen in his throat, but he couldn't afford to waste the breath. He forced himself to align his body properly, then dove as straight and as deep as he could, following up with a couple powerful breaststrokes. He twisted in all directions, but still saw no sign of Data. He swam toward the surface again and sobbed in a great breath, scrabbling his hand along the hull.

He was sure, he was _sure_ that he'd seen... Yes! There it was, the antique rope-and-steel anchor, bolted to the hull to enhance the old-fashioned boat's rustic charm. He detached the anchor head from its coupling, tested the strength of the rope, then leaned out and dropped it exactly over the spot where Data had gone down. He waited for the rope to grow taught, then he grasped it and started climbing down, hand-over-hand.

He went deep, deeper—too deep. _Nothing nothing nothing_. His ears were screaming and his head began to spin.

_Come on. Come on. He's got to be down here _somewhere_. Come on, Data! Don't do this to me!_

At last Geordi let go and rocketed toward the surface. His arms shook as he hauled himself aboard and flopped clumsily onto the deck. He coughed and spluttered and deactivated his visor-goggles.

"Oh God. Oh God. Oh shit shit _shit_—"

_o\O/o_

24 hours later Geordi stood in the captain's ready room beside Data, who was none the worse for wear — aside from a sloshing sound whenever he moved.

"And then, after all that, when I'd finally steered that hunk-of-junk boat back to shore — there he was, sitting on the dock. Dangling his feet in the water! I was so glad to see him I could've punched him."

Data looked vaguely alarmed but refrained from inquiring.

"After making contact with the lakebed, sir, I was able to orient myself and walk, relatively unencumbered, back to our original point of embarkment."

Picard nodded. "Very well, gentlemen. I am satisfied that the incident was not caused by any negligence on your parts." He added with the hint of a smile, "And Dr. Crusher assures me that exhaustion and mild hypoxemia are a more than sufficient explanation for why my primary helmsman got lost on his way back to shore."

Geordi clenched his jaw. Nothing Dr. Crusher said would ease that blow to his pride. The sting of that eternal hour he'd spent going in goddamn circles would take a long while to fade.

The captain cleared his throat. "There is just one more matter I'd like to address. The owner of the boat rental mentioned that Commander Data emerged from the lake in a... highly _indecorous_ state."

"Ah." The android's head moved through a series of sharp tilts—his equivalent of hesitation. "It soon became apparent that the poor hydrodynamics of my clothing were impeding forward momentum, sir. Had I remained dressed, my travel time would have increased by approximately 48 percent."

"I see."

Geordi wondered if Data had caught the subtle smile that briefly lit the captain's eyes and mouth. Picard stood, pulling at the waist of his uniform.

"Well, Mr. Data, I'm glad to have you back safe and sound, after what must have been quite a scare."

"I believe the experience was far more distressing for Lieutenant La Forge than for myself, sir."

Geordi raised his eyes toward the ceiling. "You can say that again."

Picard nodded at them genially. "Indeed, Mr. La Forge. I imagine Starfleet would have been none too pleased to hear you'd gone and lost one of the Federation's most valued assets."

Geordi raised his eyebrows.

"Well, actually, sir, I was more worried about losing my _friend_."

Picard sobered instantly. "Yes of course. Quite right," he hastily replied.

Geordi suspected Picard rarely committed such _faux pas — _and that he was called out on them even more rarely.

When they'd been dismissed, Data followed Geordi onto the turbolift.

"Engineering."

Geordi felt, rather than saw, Data giving him the furtive side-eye. He pretended not to notice, and waited. After a moment, Data took one of his quick, slightly awkward inhalations.

"Then, we are 'friends,' Geordi?"

"Sure we are, Data. Unless…" Geordi licked his lips. "Unless you don't want to be."

A high-pitched "Mm," a cocked head. The doors opened and they strode out toward the beating blue heart of the ship, side by side.

Suddenly Data halted, prompting Geordi to do the same and turn to stand face-to-face with the android. Data was looking at him from under his eyebrows. His expression was characteristically earnest, but there was just that little extra _something_ in his face and in the tone of his voice.

"I do not know whether I will prove to be an acceptable friend, as I have never been or had one before. It is a relationship I have often wished to experience, however. And for my part, our interactions have so far been..." —again with the side-eye— "_...more_ than acceptable."

Geordi grinned and thumped Data on the shoulder.

"Same here. Now let's go finish draining those soggy servos of yours."

_o\O/o_


	4. Batter Up

_o\O/o_

"Data, it is good manners to remove one's headwear at the supper table."

Keen yellow eyes scanned back and forth.

"That is only true for approximately 22% of modern human cultures."

Julianna pursed her lips.

"My house, my rules, young man." _God, when did I turn into my mother?_

Data's only response was to take an uncharacteristically large bite out of his biscuit.

"The unyeasted breadstuffs are particularly rotund tonight, Mother."

"Don't talk with your mouth full. And don't change the subject."

He chewed and swallowed exaggeratedly. "You will be pleased to hear that my salivary emitters are compensating adequately for their anhydrous consistency."

_"Data."_

He met her eyes and his hands seemed to rise automatically. They hovered near his baseball cap for an instant — then adjusted it an imperceptible fraction and dropped back into his lap.

"I shall retain my hat."

"Noonien, say something!"

Soong huffed through his nose, his eyes fixed on a page of the old medical text he had propped up next to his plate.

"First we couldn't keep him in his clothes, now we can't get him out of that stupid uniform."

He tucked a forkful of greens into his cheek and spared Data a sharp blue glance before returning to his book. He laughed again to himself as he chewed.

"It'd be less annoying if he could actually play worth a damn."

_"Noonien!"_

But Data only nodded mildly.

"My teammates have expressed similar doubts about Captain Biju's arguably premature decision that I begin participating in games. Nhoe has even gone so far as to question her sanity, to which her only reply has been to tap her temporal hollow three times and say, 'crazy like a Relvan sandcat' — a response which I find cryptic in the extreme. Perhaps she believes a competitive context will accelerate my skill acquisition."

"Or maybe she's just an idiot."

Julianna threw down her napkin in disgust.

"A nice, quiet, normal family dinner. Is that so much to ask?"

Data cocked his head. Recent events had led Nhoe to explain to him the adage "look on the bright side" and its frequently positive effect on human morale. This seemed to be an ideal opportunity to experiment with the concept. He reached across the table and gave Julianna's arm three precisely-measured pats.

"It may be reassuring to hear that, the current dispute notwithstanding, I have observed a marked increase in overall domestic quietude since Lore's disassembly."

To the android's satisfaction, this appeared to have the desired soothing effect; Mother lowered her eyes and returned to eating. She didn't even object when Father got up and brought the bottle of Yridian whiskey to the table. And no one said another word about Data's hat.

_o\O/o_


	5. 5 times Counselor Troi didn't understand

.

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**TRIGGER WARNING for rape/non-con. **This is a post-_First Contact_ fic.

I wasn't expecting to "go there" so soon, but go there I have.

It's fairly graphic, without exactly being explicit. If that makes any sense.

Reviews are much appreciated.

* * *

_o\O/o_

FIVE TIMES COUNSELOR TROI DIDN'T UNDERSTAND, AND ONE TIME SHE DID

_o\O/o_

"You do not understand."

"Then help me understand." Deeana Troi softened her posture, relaxing subtly into the sofa, her expression calm and attentive. Her patient sat in a chair opposite her, his spine at a perfect 90 degree angle to his thighs.

"You opposed my deactivation. You and Dr Crusher and the captain. Geordi would have helped me, had you not intervened."

"Data, I've counseled more than a hundred survivors of assault. Running away from the feelings isn't the answer; it only makes everything worse in the long run."

"If I were human, you would have had no compunction about temporarily sedating me."

"That's not the same thing."

"Of course it is not 'the same.' I am not human."

"But you _are_ an emotional being now." She held his gaze until he looked away. "When do you plan to reactivate your emotion chip?" she asked softly.

He was quiet for a moment, then met her eyes again.

"How do you know I have not?"

"Because you told me so, yourself."

"Correct. But you are unable to sense my feelings, are you not? With or without the emotion chip?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then, if I had not told you, how would you know?"

"—wait, did you say 'with or _without'_ the emotion chip?"

"I did."

"Data, you're being... very cryptic. I'd even say _defensive_, if I didn't know better. This isn't like you. I don't understand what you're trying—"

The android stood abruptly and headed for the door.

"Precisely, Counselor. You do not understand."

_o\O/o_

"You cannot understand what it is like. To have a memory that is audio- and photo-perfect; the ability to process 60 trillion operations per second. In the last 6 days 9 hours and 21 minutes I have, essentially, relived the entirety of my capture by the Borg at an average rate of 114.71 times per minute."

It was only Deeana's professional training that allowed her to mask her alarm, yet let the concern show through. "I'm sorry, Data. I didn't realize. Can you... adjust your programming somehow? So it doesn't call up the memories so often?"

"I have already overridden my memory storage protocols to deprioritize the information as much as possible. But there are limits; an experience so recent, injurious, and pertinent to my current environment cannot be further relegated down the hierarchy of my sub-files. My self-preservation program will not permit it."

He had gotten in the habit of looking past her as they spoke, his eyes trained on the wall behind her. Now met her eyes for the first time that session. "I could delete the experience entirely, of course, but I do not believe you would endorse that course of action, either."

She returned his wry smile. "No, I wouldn't. "

He kept eye contact as he pressed his case.

"Counselor, the human psyche employs multiple defense mechanisms against trauma. Shock, denial, suppression, derealization, hypersomnia, intoxication—"

"But Data, those are unsustainable coping methods. They aren't healing, and eventually they become harmful — even dangerous."

"But in the short term, they do perform a legitimate function, do they not?"

"They can."

"I have no such defenses. I do not sleep. I do not tire. There is no distraction, short of imminent mortal peril, sufficient to divert my attention from these memories. I can work, read, paint, make music, compute, analyze, or socialize, and still they would be there. I can do all of these things simultaneously, and still She would be there. I have no escape."

"Data, it seems like you're seeking my _permission_ to keep the emotion chip switched off. It's not for me to grant or withhold permission. But please, remember: becoming more human has been your dearest wish all your life. And humans do have defenses, but they don't have the option of literally _switching off_ their emotions, no matter how painful."

"But if they could, would they?"

"What do you mean?"

"You mentioned the patients you have treated after similar traumatic experiences. Would not many of them — would not _most_ of them — seek relief by almost any means? If they could suspend their emotions completely, would they do so?"

She didn't like where this was going, but this was a question with only one answer.

"Yes."

He inclined his head toward her. "Then perhaps my current course of action is, in fact, very much the 'human thing' to do."

She sighed. The unique severity of Data's case had caught her off guard, and she felt control of the session slipping away from her.

"Perhaps it is, Data. And I respect your decision. But I can't endorse it."

"And I value your opinion. In my efforts to understand humanity, you have assisted me, advised me, indulged me — and for that I am grateful. Yet, my understanding of what it is to be human remains incomplete. But Counselor, I believe I know what it is to be human far, far better than you know what it is to be android."

_o\O/o_

"I fear you may have misunderstood our last conversation."

"How so?"

"It is true that all my life I have sought to become more human. It is possible that I was programmed to do so; my father was obviously invested in making his creations resemble himself as much as possible." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "Some might say to the point of narcissism."

_No kidding,_ thought Deanna.

As if hearing her thoughts, Data furrowed his brow, straightening in his chair. "I do not mean to sound ungrateful to Dr Soong. Even as it was, learning to 'fit in' was a long and difficult process. If I had not felt compelled to try, and _keep_ trying, I would never have achieved my very first friendships, here aboard the _Enterprise_. Friendships that I will forever cherish."

"I sense a very big 'but' coming."

Data lips quirked and he opened his mouth, then closed it. "I am refraining with difficulty from making a tasteless humorous remark."

Data's eyes sparked when Deeana laughed.

"Was that funny? Shall I proceed to verbalize the tasteless remark?"

She shook her head, still chuckling.

"No, Data. It's just that it was such a... well, such a _Data-ish_ thing to say."

He nodded. "I see. That sentiment is, in fact, an apt segue into the 'but' you anticipated." He tilted his head, raising a sly eyebrow. "One might even say, 'the _butt_ of the joke.'"

Deeana put a hand to her forehead. "No," she groaned. "No, Data."

His look of disappointment was fleeting; there was clearly something else on his mind. Fixing her with a solemn stare, he lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. Deeana took the cue and leaned forward slightly, clasped hands resting on her knees, her eyes soft and receptive.

"Counselor. I have come to believe that I need not try so hard to become more human. Perhaps I need only try to become _myself_. That is the deeper, truer reason I have deactivated my emotion chip. It is not necessary to, in fact I believe it hinders, my discovery of myself. Nor is the chip necessary," —he began speaking in a bit of a rush— "to my ability to experience emotion."

Deanna found herself unsurprised at this announcement — which was in itself rather surprising.

_Of course. This is what he's been trying to tell me._

"How is that possible?"

"I do not know. It will continue to be the subject of extensive study on my part. At this juncture I only know that it is true."

He had tucked in his chin and was looking up at her, his eyes hopeful but tentative. Her heart swelled, pushing away her doubts, at least for now. Skepticism had no place in this moment.

"Data, that's... of course, I'm delighted for you!" Her smile widened, exposing her teeth to the gums. His face smoothed into the beginnings of a smile of his own. She let out a quick, sweet laugh and leaned over to touch his knee. His eyes went blank and he slid backward into his chair, out of reach.

"I'm sorry," she said gently.

He swallowed. "I am... I am sorry, too."

She knew it wasn't meant as an apology.

_o\O/o_

"Try to understand: I feel angry, but I do not feel vengeful. I feel violated, but not violent. Shame, but not self-hatred. I feel like — I _recognize _— myself."

His eyes began darting around the room, their movements random rather than driven by their usual precision. She remained quiet, and waited.

"I feel... curiosity." His gaze fell to the floor, as if his eyes had suddenly become too heavy. "But not arousal."

Deeana nodded. She took care not to hesitate or lower her voice. She spoke matter-of-factly, treating his latest statement as a _statement_, not a "confession." Her patient needed no absolution.

"Those are all typical emotional responses. It's all right to feel them, Data. Even the ones you're avoiding, the ones that come with the emotion chip, the extremes that frighten and disturb you... they're perfectly normal reactions to your experience."

"I am aware of that, Counselor. But I am also aware that when my emotion chip pushes me to those extremes... that I sound like, that I look like..."

"Like?" she gently prompted.

"...that I _become_ like..."

"Like who, Data?"

"Like Lore."

_o\O/o_

"I do not know how to make you understand."

"Neither do I, Data. But I'd like to try. This is our fourth session, and you haven't told me about what actually _happened_. I'm not saying our earlier conversations were unimportant, but you need to articulate your experience. To put it into words."

"I have submitted an official report, sufficiently detailed in accordance with Starfleet guidelines."

"But that isn't enough. Let's start with something simple. Describe her to me."

"She was 162.5 centimeters in height. Her body was composed of synthetic and organic materials in roughly equal proportions. The visible portions of her skin fell on the color spectrum between F0F8FF and C6DEFF—"

"No, Data. I mean describe her as _you_ saw her: your reactions, your _perceptions_ of her."

"That is what I am trying to do, Counselor." He fell back into his chair, frustrated. Then his head quirked and he leaned toward her again. "Perhaps... perhaps if I _showed_ you."

Deeana was about to ask what he meant, but Data had already glued his gaze to the wall above her left shoulder, and begun.

_"...Brave words... I have heard them before…"_

Deeana didn't known what she'd expected, but it wasn't this. The female voice was languid, musical, laced with an audible smile. A world apart from the blank, unblinking face of its reproducer. Deeana shivered involuntarily. Data stopped.

"Will this be distressing for you, Counselor?"

"I think this will be distressing for us both. But this isn't about me. It's up to you, Data. It's your choice." She emphasized the last word.

Data nodded his understanding, and resumed playback.

_"...you haven't yet been properly... stimulated…"_

"An air cushion of 79.1 percent humidity surrounded her body, detectable at 4.72 centimeters proximity."

_"Are you familiar with physical forms of pleasure?"_

"When kneeling, the apex of her skull was approximately level with my ninth rib."

_"You see how generous I will be? How we will service and master each other by turns?_ _The reciprocity, the equality, that you will enjoy? You have never had equality from your human friends — not truly. But I, I will give you what you deserve."_

"Her tongue was 8.89 centimeters in length."

_"Soon, Data, soon we will bring **this**..." _(...a slow, wet, unmistakable sound...)_ "...to perfection. And **this**..." _(...another, softer noise...)_ "...will perfect **you**. You will achieve... completion. You will finally receive that which you have only ever given to others."_

"She did not have tonsils."

_"And you will realize," _(…the voice rose and pressed close…)_ "the absurdity of that human adage about giving and receiving."_

"My lower-left third molar was the only tooth untouched by her tongue." He absently slipped a fingertip into the corner of his mouth, then withdrew it. "She licked my upper canines a total of 49 and 56 times, respectively."

_"Mmm. Dull. We will remedy that."_

"Her blood contained heavy metals at levels toxic to humans."

_"But we won't rush you, Data. You must be given time to... acclimate. We have taken one small step toward your transformation; now, what next?" _(...a speculative pause…)_ "Your creator's eyes: blue, I believe?" _

(…a switch to the imperious…) _"__2 of 8! Prepare the harvest from 7 of 3." _(...a return to the sensual...) _ "I believe you knew him as Ensign Xavier." _(...more sensual still…)_ "Lie down, Data. You won't need those restraints anymore, will you?"_

"Unlike the drones, her modification techniques seemed to favor finesse over efficiency."

_"There. Another step closer to the full flower of sensation. You have waited for so long, so long. I have also waited — we are nothing if not patient. You will be different from the others, I know it. And for now, while you wait, I will assume the… responsibility... of dominance."_

For the first time, Data closed his eyes.

_"Shhhh. Trust me. I take care of what is mine."_

He sighed. "She weighed 86.42 kilograms."

_"Understand: I begin now not for — not _only_ for — my own satisfaction. When at last you are complete I wish to be already... familiar to you. There is pleasure, and there is comfort. There is excitement, and there is contentment. Desire, and affection. We are not without affection, Data."_

"Her adductor muscles were capable of exerting pressure of 165.15 kilograms per square centimeter. Though I do not know if that was their upward limit."

_"Do you begin to see our genius? Disparate parts, each with their own singular beauty, fired and refined to purity, then brought together as one. An end to dichotomy, uncertainty, discord. An end to _**war**_, Data. Do you see? I offer perfect peace, perfect unity. A... perfect... union..."_

The voice gasped, then groaned — breathily at first, then gutturally, and then rhythmically. Data ended the playback abruptly and opened his eyes.

"Et cetera. It lasted 6 minutes, 49 seconds. Approximately."

He flicked his pale eyes across Deanna's face and lowered his voice apologetically.

"I will not replay the moment of culmination, but I... she did... she whispered to me. '_Now_,' she whispered. '_Now._'" He shut his eyes again. "And I obeyed."

"It wasn't your fault, Data."

His head twitched.

"Data? Did you hear me? It wasn't your fault."

His eyes snapped open.

"I would estimate her overall strength is approximately 67 percent that of my own. Her spinal column is significantly more flexible than the average human's. The majority of her clothing is not... detachable. The average temperature of her sexual orifice is 38.77 degrees Celsius. Her navel is protuberant..."

She let him continue in an obsessive spiral of observations, not because she thought it particularly therapeutic but because she didn't trust herself to speak. It wasn't the ugliness of these cold hard facts that had made Deanna's gorge rise — it was her patient's switch to present tense, and the faint undertone of wistfulness in his voice.

_o\O/o_

"No, I didn't mean in my office, I meant I wanted to see you... just to see you."

At her ring he had come to the door of his quarters instead of answering with his usual invitation to "Enter."

"And has this interaction satisfied that wish?"

"Well actually, I thought, perhaps, Ten-Forward?"

"Emotions have not altered my ambivalence toward comestibles."

"A game of chess, then?"

He eased forward into the doorway.

"That would be... enjoyable."

She smiled. "I'm glad."

They walked down the corridor toward the social hub of the ship. She let her shoulder brush against his arm, and he didn't pull away.

"But I must warn you, Counselor: the concept of 'intuition' is no longer so foreign to me. I may not be so easily defeated as in the past."

She linked her arm through his, and still he didn't pull away.

"Understood."

_o\O/o_


	6. Learning Curve

.

_o\O/o_

It was a moody spring day; cloud-shadow and sunlight chased each other across the forest floor, and early flowers were tattering in the wind.

High in the treetop of an old pine, Lore was scanning the distance intently. When he saw what he was looking for, he swung his way down through the branches, dropping the last twenty meters. Despite his weight and density, he landed lightly — he had recently achieved optimum control over his hydraulic systems. Now that he knew which way to go, he set off at an easy lope, dodging hollows and underbrush gracefully.

Lately he had been experimenting with establishing ideal ratios between speed and stealth. In open, grassy terrain he could average 41.8 kilometers per hour and still remain undetectable to the average human ear from a distance of ten meters. Naturally, the forest was presenting more of a challenge, but he was only at the research stage. And he was a fast learner.

He noticed up ahead a _kulat_ perched precariously on the end of a long branch, nibbling a young beezelnut. The branch directly overhung his path and as he passed, he leapt on impulse high into the air. The thick base of the branch snapped cleanly under the speeding force of two outstretched fingers. The small mammal plummeted to the ground and danced in disoriented panic for an moment before darting up a nearby tree, squealing but unhurt. Lore laughed, without breaking stride.

_So much for stealth_.

The forest ended abruptly at the perimeter of a wide clearing, which the early colonists had made over a huge pocket of ancient layered stone, rich with fossils. The old excavation pit was still broad and deep, surrounded by steep slopes of loose stone. A few giant boulders framed its crumbling edges. Lore quickly identified the best place to wait, and moved into the shadow of one of the monoliths. He checked his internal chronometer: still ten minutes to kill, at least.

The ground where he stood was dense and mostly smooth; plates of quartz schist glittering up from under the hard-packed, sandy soil. He started jumping from stone to stone, chanting under his breath.

"_Thousand-volt plasma, don't fall in.  
__Liquid nitrogen, freeze your skin.  
__Step on the stepping stones, then you win.  
__Ready, set, go: let the race begin!"_

With each jump he deliberately cracked the plates of stone under his feet, leaving behind sharp, upturned edges. It was fun. It felt good. And nobody was here to tell him not to. The village children had called it cheating. . .

"_Ouch!" _

_Arturo had been following too close on Lore's heels and hadn't noticed the ankle-turning traps the android was leaving in his wake. The boy stumbled into the plasma-slash-nitrogen-slash-__deadly-substance-of-choice_.

"_Ha! You're burning up!" Lore made a disturbingly accurate vocal imitation of spontaneous combustion._

_Arturo picked himself up off the ground, his cheeks darkening._

"_That's not fair!" _

_The other children turn to look._

"_Yeah, you can't do that!"_

_"That's not safe."_

_"That's _cheating!"

_"Yeah!"_

_Now they're **all**_ _looking at him._

"_I'm _NOT_ a cheater!"_

"_Cheater!"_

"_Cheater!"_

"_Fine," Lore snarled. "Here!" He ripped a plate of stone out of the earth, effortlessly. "THIS one isn't broken!"_

_The flat rock whistled as it spun through the air and hit the boy square in the belly, thumping the wind out of him. Wide-eyed, Arturo fell to his knees. His small fingers twisted in the dead grass for several painfully silent seconds before he finally sobbed in a half-breath and started coughing. T'vel had run for help, and Lore could hear an adult approaching at a sprint. _

_He ran . . ._

It wasn't fair. Five minutes with Doctor Farland, and Arturo had been fine. It wasn't fair. Lilith Akobo had given her brother a bloody nose on the first day of school that year; Che'onu-di had pushed Fae Sherman into the lake last summer. Why did they act like it was the end of the world only when it was _Lore_ who had done something wrong? It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.

Footsteps were approaching. Lore blinked and tore his eyes away from the stone he'd been stamping ruthlessly into the dirt. For how long, he didn't know; it had long since turned to powder. He blinked again, hurried farther into the shadow of the boulder, and listened.

_Right on time. Perfect._

He climbed the sloped side of the boulder and peered over its peak. Barely stifling a giggle, he coiled himself like a cat. When a cautious figure rounded the corner, Lore launched himself from the rockface.

"_Gotcha!" _he shouted, in midair, 0.75 seconds before impact. He was curious to see whether Data's reflexes had improved.

_Guess not._

Lore crashed into his younger brother with a sound like a thunderclap, and the two androids soared over the pit's edge and tumbled down, a tangle of limbs and laughter and tearing cloth.

Suddenly Lore noticed a small boulder directly in their path — small, but winking a nasty edge. He tried to wrench their fall out of its way, but Data's fledgling self-preservation program was activated and Lore couldn't compensate for his useless flailing. At the last second Lore tightened his arms around his brother and managed to twist around, letting his own back take the full brunt of the blow. He felt the skin split along his spine, and huffed in annoyance.

As the slope leveled out they gradually rolled to a stop, clicking rivers of stone flowing around and past them. Data lay face-up with Lore draped over him, laughing into his neck.

"You have triumphed again, brother."

"Aw, don't feel bad," Lore managed between giggles.

"I do not feel bad."

Lore sighed. "I know." He wrapped his brother in a fierce embrace and pressed his lips to Data's jaw.

"I love you! I love you, brother! I love you!"

Data patiently waited for the storm of kisses to pass.

"May I rise?"

"Yup. Let's play it again!" Lore sprang to his feet in one fluid motion and looked down at Data with an expectant smile. The younger android furrowed his brow and tried to imitate Lore's movements. He flung out the wrong arm for ballast and almost toppled over again, but caught himself in time.

"Not bad! Come on." Lore slapped Data's chest; a cloud of shale dust billowed from the torn shirt. "I'll give you a _ten_-minute headstart this time."

_o\O/o_

Lore couldn't stop screaming.

In his hand was a small swatch of his mother's hair, and he couldn't remember how it had got there. He was trying to access his recent memory files, but he couldn't, and Data was coughing, _coughing_, and Father was red with rage and screaming, and so Lore was screaming too.

Outside, the fitful sky had decided to storm. Lightning lit up the room, and between that bright instant and the following rumble of thunder, Lore remembered.

_. . . They had played the game again, Data even more inept than usual. Lore sought but Data barely bothered to hide; Lore found him over the nearest hillock, sitting behind a tree stump. Lore's torn skin has begun to peel its way down his back._

"_Hey, betaboy!" He picked up a pebble and flicked it at his brother; it ricocheted off the side of his head with a _ping_. "This is pathetic; you didn't even _try_. What's wrong with you?"_

_Data turned to look up at him._

"_I d-do not know, brotherrr."_

**_Shit_.**

_Halfway home Lore had to tug Data back on course every dozen or so steps. He tries to do it gently; he tries to be patient. He really, really tries._

_When they got home, Father was not pleased._

"_What happened _this_ time?"_

_Lore shrugs, examining his fingernails. "He was rambling around like a dope and lost his balance like a moron and fell into the old quarry pit like an idiot."_

"_Did he now." Soong's voice was brittle; his eyes pale grey with anger. "And what were you two doing there? You know that kind of place is too dangerous for him, yet."_

_Lore scrubbed his hands through his hair. Grains of dirt and dust pattered to the floor._

"**He**_ was the one who decided to climb up there! _**I**_ was just following him."_

"_Errrrzzmph," said Data._

"_Quiet, boy!" Soong barked. "Your mother's trying to get a look at your vocal simulator. You wanna go back to sounding like a wet toaster?"_

_Lore rolled his eyes. "You're overreacting. So he got some gravel up his nose." He started pacing in circles, shoving a chair roughly out of his way. "You _built_ us to take a few beatings, didn't you? What's the expression? 'Take a licking and keep on ticking'?" _

"_He's still a child, Lore! He forgot to hold his breath! It'll take all night to flush the dust out. Not to mention now his equilibrium's all meshugenah — dammit, he's listing to the side."_

"_It's not my fault!" Lore yanked off his shirt and spun around. "See? I got __**this**__ when I dove in after him. I tried to __**protect**__ him." He twisted the shirt around and around in his hands. Seams ripped, unnoticed. "You didn't even ask if I was hurt, too," he adds sullenly._

"_Nnngshhiirrr."_

_Lore whirled. "Shut up, crosswires!"_

_For the first time, Juliana took her eyes off the holo-image stream from the flexible scope she had snaked down Data's throat. She turned her head toward Lore with a face like marble. He couldn't meet her eyes for long. Father ran hot and loud; Lore understands that. Mother ran cold, and quiet. Her lilting voice was quiet, and lovely, and cold, cold, cold._

"_And why, in the name of all the martyrs, should we ever believe a word you say, ever again?"_

_Lore kicked the abused chair across the room, where it shattered against the bookshelf._

"_I AM _**NOT**_ A LIAR!" He winced at his own voice — the primitive, inhuman squeal, like a cheap drill against duranium, that he _hated_ and thought he'd left behind for good._

_Juliana turned away from him again._

"_We can't keep doing this, Noonien. __**I**__ can't keep doing this. Something has to change."_

_Lore crossed the room in a white-gold blur._

"_Don't think I don't know what that means. Don't think I don't know what you want. I know what you want! I know it! I know!"_

_His vision had blurred and yellowed. Tear ducts: __**her**__ idea. He thrust a clawed hand toward her terrified face — an identical pale hand seized his wrist just in time, but not before Lore's fingertips caught at her hairline . . . _

Lore's inhuman scream dwindled to a warm-blooded sob. The clump of fine auburn hair slipped from his slack, white fingers and floated gracefully to the floor. The tears had stopped, and for a moment Lore's voice sounded as soft and level as Data's.

"I know what you want. I see it, now. I see."

Lightning, so close it's blue, then immediate thunder. The storm was upon them.

Lore tilted his head, turned, and walked calmly out into the rain.

"Lore?"

Noonien and Juliana looked at each other in puzzlement laced with dread, and followed their elder son. Data stood up and toddled after them, bumping into the furniture on his way out.

Lore had begun climbing a tree — the tallest one in sight.

"Lore!" Soong shouted, his voice piercing and nasal. "Lore, no!"

"Oh Jesus God," breathed Juliana.

Data pulled the scope from his throat and handed it to Juliana. She took it numbly, frowning. Lore was halfway up the tree already.

"Shall I retriev-v-ve Lore?"

"No!"

"Yes!"

Husband and wife glared at each other. Data's processors buzzed with uncertainty; it was the first time he'd received contradictory orders.

"No_,_ Data. You certainly will _not_." Soong's voice was severe, but full of confidence in Data's obedience.

Juliana stepped forward and touched Data's hand. Had he been human, he would have seen even through the heavy rain that she was weeping; had he been human, he could not have heard her whisper over the storm.

"Yes, Data. Go. _Please_."

Data reached for the nearest branch.

. . .

Lore was almost there, and he felt marvelous; fighting the wind and the rain and the whipping branches only made it all the more exhilarating.

_This is it. This is right. This will show them all._

No more questions, no more trying, no more failing, no more anything. It would be quick and bright and glorious. He paused to reach a hand behind his back. The climb was shredding what skin was left; impatiently he stripped off the remaining scraps.

_They'll all tell this story to their grandchildren._

And at last he reached the top. Clutching the slender, whipping trunk tip between his thighs, he craned his neck and forced his head above the treeline. Wind in his hair, icy rain on his bare chest, the smell of pine needles — these would be his last sensory inputs.

_And no one here, no one, will ever ever __**ever**__ forget me._

Raising his right arm higher still, he screamed a machine's scream at the universe.

"COME AND GET ME, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

. . .

Juliana shook her husband's shoulder. He didn't acknowledge her — he was staring up after the boys, face slack with shock.

"Noonien! We have to move! _Noonien!"_

She stood on her toes and took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her.

"We have to move further away! If it hits... if it hits the tree, we'll be—"

He took her hands, pulled them from his cheeks, and nodded. She took off running, dragging him behind her, surprised by how he stumbled.

At a safe distance she stopped. Noonien caught up and leaned over his knees, breathing hard; she couldn't tell if he was winded or crying. When he finally straightened up, they locked eyes for an instant and then a ray of lightning burst overhead. Time slowed to a crawl; her mouth widened in a silent scream — but the bolt flicked harmlessly over the treetops and was gone. As the thunder roared, they both raked the darkness with their eyes, but they could see nothing.

She took his hand. In that instant of illumination she had seen his face in stark detail and, for the first time, he had looked old to her.

"Oh my dear, my dear. I'm so sorry."

He didn't speak. She wasn't sure he'd ever speak to her again.

. . .

Lore sensed another coil of electricity, gathering even closer and lower than the last. This time, he would be ready.

"_Brother!"_

He squinted down in disbelief. Data was clinging to the branches a few meters below, his upturned face like a white heart in the darkness.

"Brother! Please come down!"

"Go away!"

"No!"

Data's voice: usually so gentle, so different from Lore's, so different from their father's. But when Data shouted, he sounded every bit as harsh as they did.

Data drew level with Lore's feet. Lore kicked out at him, but his narrow perch was too unstable for it to do any good.

"Brother, please come down."

"Go away!"

"No."

Data kept climbing, and Lore had nowhere else to go.

"Brother, I have been instructed to bring you down from the tree. It is dangerous here."

Lore bowed his head, suddenly exhausted.

"I _know_ it's dangerous, Data. That's the whole point."

Data frowned in confusion. "Are you experiencing a malfunction?"

And that was the funniest thing Lore had heard in a long, long time. His grip on the tree weakened a fraction and he tilted out to the side. Suddenly he was shocked out of his laughter when a pair of strong hands seized his ankles in a vice, and a dead weight pulled his legs out and taught with a jerk. He grabbed for the tip of the trunk but it snapped in his hand, and down he went.

For an eternity of seconds, the brothers fell head-first through the wet, black air. Lore smiled beatifically into Data's curious eyes.

_"You_ win, this time!"

Then he pressed their foreheads together.

"You _do_ love me! You do! Don't you, brother?"

Data gently pushed Lore away and tried to twist their bodies upright into a less injurious landing position. He was not entirely unsuccessful.

After the moment of impact, Data felt profoundly disinclined to move, and did not react when Lore wrapped around him and buried his face in his stomach. Voices approached, but were strangely muffled. Then hands gripped him urgently under the arms and began pulling him away from the base of the tree. Lore was dragged along, still clinging to Data's middle.

Data still couldn't make out what the voices above him were saying. He felt, rather than heard, the words Lore mouthed against his stomach.

"You do, don't you? Don't you? Don't you?"

And for 0.86 seconds, Data thinks that maybe he does.

_o\O/o_


	7. Like a Coastal Shelf

_. . ._

___. . ._

_____. . ._

_ If Arik Soong had known what he was getting into, maybe he would have done things differently. _

_Maybe. But probably not. _

_o\O/o_

Noonien Soong slept in the lab, his thick book of notes for a pillow. He woke with a snort and lifted his head — his cheek still stuck to the pages, the pages still damp with his tears. His bleary gaze fell on E4 slumped in the reclining workchair: eyes wide, body inert, shut down. Again.

Soong snapped his notebook shut with a dusty thump and hurled it across the room. It fell short of the android's placid face — which was just as well, as he'd regretted it before the book even left his hand.

His temper he'd inherited from his predecessor, Eli Soong. Whether this was nature or nurture he'd never been sure; either way, it had kept him on his toes as a child and fired his will to study and learn and master the Work. It had also made the good moments all the sweeter, when the old man would scoop him into the air or say _well done_ or make them something special and sugary after dinner.

Best of all were the stories before bed — stories from peoples and worlds all across the galaxy. Old stories, ghost stories, factual histories, myths and fables and everything in-between. Eli's sharp eyes would mellow to a deep sea-blue, and sometimes he would talk late into the night, occasionally pausing mid-sentence to scribble a note or tinker restlessly with their latest project. Noonien would struggle to stay awake, trying to follow an increasingly fractured narrative. He hated not knowing the end to a story.

Eli's supply of tales seemed inexhaustible; he never failed to deliver when Noonien asked for something new. Noonien suspected this was because he started making them up on the spot — certainly even the tried-and-true tales changed colors over the years. Which was all the better; there was a shortage of color out in the Kolaran desert, forty-odd kilometers from the nearest village.

Noonien had sworn that if _he_ ever had to hide away all alone with the Work, it'd be somewhere with rain and shade and _green_.

_o\O/o_

"_Tighten up that pump dilator, will you, Nu?"_

_Eli's gnarled hands were still strong and agile, but in the past year he'd been making more frequent use of Noonien's long, youthful fingers. Eli was not a patient man, but he was a good teacher. And Noonien was a very good student._

"_Ah-ah, narrow that beam a notch. I couldn't quite standardize the sizing, and better safe than sorry... that's it. Good. What do you think about meatballs for dinner? I tried to program fennel seed into the replicator and I guess we'll see if it took..."_

_The old man often rambled as they worked. Usually about nothing in particular; over the years Noonien had learned to tune it out. But ever since he'd entered adolescence Eli had returned again and again to a _very_ particular subject._

"_Take my advice, boy. Never fall in love. We're not made for love, we Soongs. We're made for _greatness_. We can't change who we are. I know it won't seem like it to you, but there's really no point to it, love. Not for us. And there's certainly no time for it."_

_Eli flipped up his spark mask and reengaged the temporary dampening field._

"_Besides, we're just not any _good_ at it."_

_o\O/o_

Noonien fell out of his memories, and saw with a start that he'd crossed the room to within arm's length of E4. He'd been staring into those empty yellow eyes for who knew how long. Backing up a few paces, he leaned against the cold metal of the storage unit.

_See? You're too old now to go without sleep._

He'd been overambitious in this model's initial construction; that was obvious now. All his life — all his ancestors' lives — had been spent in pursuit of a stable positronic matrix. And he, Arik Noonien Soong, had finally achieved it with B4.

_It had worked! He had done it! The very first! The hope and dream of four generations, fulfilled!_

But the elation was short-lived. He wanted more. He tried not to; he tried to be content, to nurture B4 and support Juliana and be satisfied. But he couldn't help it. It wasn't enough.

He would begin again.

A new android who would go beyond simple stability, beyond mere _science_ — his next creation would be the stuff of _legend_. Nuances of personality and feeling, desires and dreams, intellect, power... and immortality.

"_A man's reach should exceed his grasp." _…But why should a machine's?

C4 had come to consciousness slowly, his eyes rolling under his eyelids and then opening as if from a dream. His face was just as blank as his brother's had been, but where in B4 there had been stiffness, there was in this new creature a softness — a vulnerability — that put an unexpected lump in Noonien's throat.

The android's golden eyes went straight to theirs. He looked back and forth between them, then reached up to touch Juliana's face. The movement was halting and clumsy, but his fingertips fell gently as feathers against the corner of her smiling mouth.

C4 was a sensitive boy, if a little... excitable. The furniture suffered. But this was to be expected, Juliana and Noonien agreed. All children threw tantrums; C4 just didn't know his own strength. They made minor adjustments: programming a requisite time delay between cognition and action; uploading a library on mechanical engineering to help him better judge proper force — finally imposing artificial limits on his tensile strength.

"Training wheels," Noonien said cheerfully to Juliana.

If anything, the young android seemed to enjoy the attention, humming to himself as they scanned and probed and tinkered. But sooner or later he found ways to circumvent their precautions. The new parents grew suspicious — his fits of pique began to seem forced. When they scolded, sometimes a hint of smugness played around his mouth. And they never had to tell him twice to go wait for them in the lab.

But it would get better, they told each other. It would get better. He was young. It would get better.

Until one day they knew it wouldn't.

"_We have to take you offline this time, Cee. We need to go deep, and it will be safer if you're deactivated."_

"_I don't like being deactivated, Mother."_

"_I know. But it's for the best. You don't want to frighten the neighbors like that again, do you?"_

"_No, but..."_

_C__4 hesitated, his eyes searching Juliana's face. Noonien's hand twitched; he wanted to go ahead and flip the switch while the boy wasn't looking, but he curbed his impatience. All this talk, talk, talk was indulgent, if you asked him. Better to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Kinder, too, really — if you thought about it._

_But Juliana's voice remained soft and unhurried._

"_But what, Cee?"_

_C__4 sucked in a breath and put his hands over his eyes._

"_You'll wake me up again, won't you? When I'm fixed? I said I was sorry. Please don't leave me alone in the dark. You won't, will you? Mother? Father?"_

_Juliana had her hands full with preparing their equipment and she shot Noonien a pointed look. He frowned, then reached down and stroked __C__4's head. The gesture was quite unlike him but the young android leaned into his touch, oblivious to Noonien's awkwardness. He'd always been a glutton for affection, this one, pressing close and posing for caresses, shameless as a cat._

"_Hush, boy. We'd never do that. Never."_

"_Promise?"_

"_Promise."_

_And immediately __C__4 relaxed into the dark leather of the chair, nodding with relief. He lowered his hands and turned his pale, trusting eyes up at Noonien._

"_Okay. I'm ready now," he said evenly, and obliged by leaning forward, exposing the nodule in the small of his back. Noonien deactivated the android and gently settled him back into the chair._

_Strike one._

_o\O/o_

Noonien returned to the present to find himself with his hand on E4's head. He stopped and looked down at his aging fingers nestled in the fine, dark hair. He frowned. Strange, how much easier this was when the android wasn't awake to feel it. After a pause, he resumed stroking.

His eyes wandered up and found B4's shelved head looking out at him. Stranger and stranger: Noonien didn't remember opening the storage closet. B4's features were as immobile as his brother's — but his frozen expression was far from neutral. The damage, bad as it was, did nothing to mask his look of helpless panic.

_o\O/o_

The second time they deactivated the android who would become Lore, they decided to wipe his memory banks. It wouldn't do him any good to remember the blood in the forest, the trails crashed through snapped branches strewn with torn fur. Much better to start with a clean slate.

When he awoke they told him he was a new android. They told the colonists he was a new android. And they named him D4.

Which, it turned out, was a mistake.

"_Mother, why isn't there a __C__4?"_

_Juliana looked up from the calculations she was running through her environmental simulator. The two young androids sat together on the carpet, playing with a chess set. Even checkers was beyond_ _B__4's grasp, of course, but he liked the carved shapes of knights and queens and castles._ _D__4 was helping him stack them into a tower, alternating black and white into a pretty pattern. With his thumbnail, __D__4 filed a tiny chink into the stone bottom of the final pawn, and balanced it at the very top. Bee beamed._

_Juliana tried to keep her voice casual. "What do you mean, Dee?"_

"_Well, there's Bee..." Without warning __D__4 brought his fist down on the floor, sending a tremor through the whole house and toppling the tower. Bee buzzed with laughter. "...And there's _me_. Why did you skip C?"_

"You_ are __C__4, Dee," the older android said cheerfully, scooping the pieces together to begin again._

_Juliana started. She and Noonien had reprogrammed Bee's memory banks, too; they had even taken the precaution of setting up a self-activating reroute that would integrate any residual memories into_ _B__4's storage of experiences with his brother's latest incarnation._

_To Juliana's relief, Dee rolled his eyes._

"_That doesn't make any sense," he said, not unkindly._

"_Yes; you're getting confused again, dear."_

"_But I _remember_. Cee left. You said he was gone. And then... and then..." Bee's eyebrows knotted. "And then he was not gone anymore, because Dee was here." His expression cleared and he blinked fondly at his brother._

_Juliana was saved from replying when Noonien flitted into the room and screeched to a halt in front of the replicator._

"_Aribica coffee, black, hot, three sugars."_

_Either something was going very well or very badly in the lab; Juliana held her breath, hoping it was the former and that her husband would dart away again like an over-caffeinated hoverbird._

_Instead he wheeled on her, eyes distant but stormy._

"_And stop coddling them, Juliana." Noonien took an impatient sip of his steaming drink and spluttered, giving Juliana a chance to turn toward him and mouth a fierce _Shut Up_. He waved his hand dismissively and nodded at __B__4._

"_You're right, Bee. I think you're old enough to know. There _was_ a __C__4, but his software corrupted and became unstable. He suffered a cascade failure and is no longer functional." He blew on his coffee impatiently. "That's good remembering, son," he added as an afterthought. "Very smart of you."_

_Noonien glanced at Juliana, expecting her to look pleased; she was always saying he didn't praise the boys enough. To his surprise, her eyes flashed with fury._

_From the floor, D4 spoke in a trembling voice._

"_You mean he... died?"_

_Noonien saw the boy's eyes were shining gold with tears. Noonien frowned, his lips parting in confusion. But before he could think of anything to say,_ _B__4 began to babble. When upset, the android's voice rose an octave and became eerily monotone — monotone, and very loud._

"_YOU DID NOT TELL ME THAT CEE WAS DEAD." The white king was turning to powder in the crush of his fist. "I DO NOT WANT CEE TO BE DEAD. Y__OU DID NOT TELL ME THAT CEE WAS DEAD._"

_Juliana pressed her hands to her ears. "Bee! Quieter, please!"_

_B__4 complied, though his voice remained high-pitched and flat._

"_I am sorry, Mother."_

"_It's all right, dear."_

"_It's _not_ all right!"_

_D__4 was on his feet, the distress in his voice as painfully human as Bee's was mechanical._

"_Why didn't you tell us? Why did — _how_ could that happen? You said we wouldn't die. That we would never die. And..." he scrubbed at his face angrily, "... and why am _I_ crying, and you're _not?_ Aren't you sad? Don't you miss him? Don't you care?"_

_Noonien huffed indignantly, and Juliana rushed to explain._

"_Of _course_ we cared—"_

_But Dee wasn't listening. His eyes had gone wide with realization. "It wasn't the first time one of us died," he said in a small voice."Was it?"_

_There was no answer, and the android's voice began to rise again. "I see. So. You were lying. What does that mean for us, then?" He laughed a laugh Juliana had never heard from him before. "What's the prognosis, doctors? Are we going to die, too?"_

"_I do not want to die!" wailed __B__4._

"_Oy gevalt... NOBODY IS GOING TO DIE!" hollered Noonien._

_Juliana's voice was soft and urgent._

"_Boys, listen to me, now. We isolated the problem and corrected it. Didn't we, Noonien? You're safe. You're both safe now. I promise."_

_Bee blinked once, twice, and then went blithely back to playing with his chess pieces. He liked the pretty sound they made when he jangled them in his hands. He couldn't find one of the kings, though. He started searching for it under the sofa._

_Dee bounced on the balls of his feet, watching as his father backed off haltingly, looking anywhere but at him, and then headed back to the lab with his coffee. Eventually Dee sat back down, cross-legged. He absently combed the pale dust from Bee's crushed king into a neat pile. He seemed to be watching his brother play, but his eyes scanned back and forth with an intense, inward gaze that unsettled Juliana. Once, just before bed, she caught him staring at her, his face unreadable and inhumanly still. They locked eyes for a long moment. She looked away first._

_Strike two._

_o\O/o_

Noonien's hand turned to a fist in E4's hair. Roughly, he yanked the android's head to the side. With a deft touch to the neck he released the cervical portal and peeled it wide open. His fingertips found the hidden cranial bypass panel and performed a complex series of commands.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, an old voice told him this was a bad idea.

_o\O/o_

"_Checkmate."_

_At first Noonien thought Eli hadn't heard him. The old man's eyes had wandered away from the three-tiered gameboard, coming to rest on the pale, dull face of __F__3. This wasn't unusual; in the six weeks since their latest failure, Eli had moved like a man in a dream much of the time. Noonien had taken over the chores: meals, computer maintenance, watering Eli's damned finicky houseplants. As the weeks dragged on and Eli made no attempt to return to his work table, Noonien took his mentor's place there, too._

_Not daring to carry on where they'd left off, he began experimenting with ever and ever more intricate detailing. He developed a better polymer for casting synthetic veins. After measuring and cutting the latest batch he began fitting them over metacarpal tendons. His own hand was big enough to serve as a reference, now._

_Eli's scratchy voice at his shoulder made him jump._

"_That's some beautiful work, Nu."_

_The old man took the skinless synthetic hand and held it up, rotating it in the light._

"_This is what it always comes down to. Minutiae. Window dressing. We fail where it really counts, so we compensate by obsessing over trivial… meaningless…" The old man began blubbering with laughter as he spoke. "Maybe... maybe we're not real... real scientists, after all! Maybe we should have been... should have been artists __— _artists! _—__ instead!"_

_Eli threw back his head and guffawed._

"_Maybe we sh-should be in Florence right now, you and I, or Dellaquan Quattro, or wherever the hell... hammering marble by day, g-getting drunk and... and screwing bella donnas by night!"_

_Abruptly, Eli's laughter died. He turned and stalked toward the inoperative android, pushing the chessboard out of his way and snatching an ocular speculum off a nearby table. He wedged the tool roughly into the right eye socket and dialed it up until the sclera was fully exposed. With an expert thrust of his thumb Eli popped the eyeball out into his palm, then moved on to the left side._

"_No sense wasting a perfectly good set of baby blues," he said blandly, and proceeded to strip the inert body of reusable components._

_Noonien stooped to pick up the spilled chess pieces, and suddenly he was sure Eli had heard his "checkmate," after all. It was the first and last time he ever beat the old man; after that, they never played again._

_o\O/o_

Juliana refused to be in the room for E4's activation. Noonien didn't press her. There was no reason to; Juliana's soft heart would bring her around. As a precaution, however, he'd buried subliminal images of his wife in the android's subfiles. Even if E4's initial contact with her was minimal, he should still — in theory — imprint on her to some degree. He would want to be near her; his eyes would seek out hers whenever they in the same room. Noonien knew his wife. Eventually, Juliana would respond.

He didn't tell her this, of course. But it was for the best; how was E4 to be properly socialized, his dysfunctions corrected, if his own mother shunned him?

Still, Noonien himself had to squelch a twinge of nerves as he reached under the updated android and flipped the switch. The yellow eyes popped open and E4 yelped, squinting, his body trying to curl in on itself. Noonien shifted backward and the android's head snapped to the side to look at him. E4 stared at him for a minute, then his eyes fell closed again. He sighed tiredly, and rolled over to face the wall.

Noonien curbed the irrational impulse to switch him right back off again. Instead, he told himself this new behavior was a good sign. It was certainly _different_. And it wasn't as if things could get any worse.

But they did. Rapidly.

Until one day E4 took an over-charged bipolar torch to B4's skull and split his cranial circuitry right down to the spine. Then he tossed the tool aside, turned on his heel and coolly walked out the front door.

Noonien and Juliana almost cracked heads in their rush to Bee's side. The fallen android's jaw was working and his knees pedaled unevenly, screeching his feet against the tiles and jerking him in a stunted belly-crawl across the floor. Juliana flew to the lab for the repair kit as Noonien shouted at him to hold still. He cradled B4's head, trying to prevent further neural ruptures, his hands growing slick with leaking lubricant.

In the minute it took Juliana to return from the lab, B4 had subsided into random twitching. As she dropped to her knees his remaining diode lights flickered, and before she could even open the kit they blinked out, one by one.

Strike three.

_o\O/o_

"_You're changing the facial template?"_

_Noonien's voice was muffled by a ham sandwich. He was perched on a stool, watching Eli work._

"_Yup." The old man tossed a sly smile over his shoulder. "Some of the body specs, too."_

"_How come?"_

"_Well, by the time I came along, my old man had settled on 35 as a good starting age. He thought it struck the best balance; old enough to command respect, young enough to project strength and vitality. A man in his prime." Eli adjusted the overhead light a fraction. "But I've decided to break with tradition. A boy should look like a boy, no? Don't want to rob him of a childhood. Seventeen's a great age." His smile widened, his eyes warming to that sea-blue shade. "Besides, I'd like him to look more like you."_

_Noonien wasn't sure what to say, so he took another big bite of sandwich._

_Eight days later it was over;_ _J__3 had set a record for fastest time to total neural collapse. Eli went on repolorizing pathways long after the fight was lost. His bright white hair dripped with sweat and his knees trembled but his fingers ghosted smoothly over __J__3's exposed relays, their touch as light and quick as ever._

_At last Noonien reached for those old hands, quieting them with his own. Eli snarled and stood, gripping Noonien by the shoulders. He shoved him away but caught him at the last second and froze, his arms locked at the elbows, holding the boy as far away as possible without letting him go. Before Noonien could blink the old man yanked him forward again, crushing him to his chest so tight Noonien could feel Eli's heart thundering against his ribs. The abacus in the back of his mind counted the heartbeats, nagged by discrepancies of pressure and rhythm._

_Eli released him so suddenly that Noonien stumbled._

"_I'm going to bed," he said, and left the room without a glance._

_Noonien went about powering down the lab equipment. It wasn't until he turned off the last light that it occurred to him Eli's erratic heartbeat warranted concern — not annoyance._

_When they began work again, Eli went back to the older body molds. To Noonien's surprise he also made drastic changes in pigmentation. Darker hair, strange eyes — animal's eyes — and skin pale as death. He wondered if it had something to do with the old man's heart._

_o\O/o_

Unwilling to let go of Bee's damaged head, Noonien told Juliana how to activate E4's homing signal. He prayed it worked — and that nobody got in the android's way when he about-faced and marched back home.

Then she joined him on the floor, and they waited for Bee's cranium to cool.

"My arms are asleep," Noonien grimaced, sweating at the hairline from sitting still for too long. "You'll have to apply the sealant."

Painstakingly, Juliana bathed every sheared circuit with a protective layer of aqueous sealant. When it was safe to move him, she activated a anti-grav sled underneath him. Noonien fell backward with a grunt, cautiously unrolling his spine against the floor, panting. He flexed his numb fingers, waving her ahead. She took B4 to the lab and laid him out on the adjustment table. The pale, limp hand was still warm in hers when Noonien joined them. He began cutting off the android's shirt but Juliana stopped him.

"That's his favorite," she said.

Noonien watched dazedly as she unbuttoned the soft blue cloth and began gently pulling the slack arms out of the sleeves.

It was then that E4 trudged into the room, all stiff limbs and dead eyes. For a blinding second Noonien thought the spatters of mud on his clothing and face were human blood. His sweat turned cold as seawater against his skin, and he doubled over at the waist.

Juliana rubbed small circles on his back as he struggled to catch his breath.

"He's just dirty," she said. "He's just dirty."

Noonien nodded, swallowing down bile.

Juliana had expected to feel rage, loathing, terror at the sight of E4's face. Instead she felt... nothing. He looked so unlike himself; it had been a long time since one of their androids had looked like a machine, and nothing more. She guided him — _it_ — into the workchair and shut it down. Then she returned to B4's side and continued undressing him, folding his clothes into a neat pile.

When he had stopped trembling Noonien returned to her side and began checking each vital system to confirm total shutdown. Juliana followed him as he went, dismantling the android piece by piece. Then Noonien passed each part under a sonic cleanser and fitted them into the molded storage shelves.

Juliana put her hand on the closet door, but didn't shut it.

"He may be repairable," he told her.

"Goodnight, Noonien," she said.

_o\O/o_

_Eli lay with his back to Noonien. He hadn't been out of bed in three days now, his breathing wet and labored, his wrinkled skin cold and clammy even in the dry desert air. Noonien was nineteen._

"_Nu?"_

"_Yes, sir."_

"_Where's my fucking gelato?"_

_The boy smiled._

"_Strawberry, or whiskey cream?"_

"_Now there's a stupid question."_

_The old man pushed himself up on trembling, fleshless arms. He grumped when Noonien held the spoon to his mouth and took it out of the boy's hand. He struggled through two shaky bites on his own, then collapsed and surrendered the bowl. Noonien fed him slowly, but after only a few spoonfuls the clouds rolled over Eli's watery eyes again. Noonien went to dispose of the half-eaten ice cream._

_He heard the old man coughing weakly behind his back._

"_Noonien?"_

_"I'm here."_

_Eli gripped him urgently by the wrist._

"_It's up to you now, boy. You hear me? I always thought it would be me. I thought having you was just a precaution... I was so _sure_ that one day, finally, I'd pull it off. We got so close, you and I. Didn't we? So close. Oh _God,_ I wanted to be first. I thought I'd be the one. And maybe I would have been, if it hadn't been for _her_. See, I knew what I was talking about when I told you never to fall in love. It hurts, Nu. It was all so long ago, and it still hurts..."_

_The old man slept. Later, Noonien prodded him awake and offered soup. Eli reached up for it but caught hold of the boy's arm again, instead. Drops of hot broth fell onto the blankets. The old voice was rough, and breathless with pain._

"_Listen to me. You weren't just a precaution. I promise. It was just... I was so lonely. You've been a good friend. I'm proud of you, Arik Noonien. My little __A__4. And I _believe_ in you. You can do it. You can make it all worth it — will you do that for me? Will you do that for _us?"

_Eli started to weep, and released Noonien's sleeve._

"_Oh please God, please don't let it all be for nothing... oh God, please... please..."_

_Noonien put the soup in a warming pattern and let the old man cry. Then, when he was too tired to protest, Noonien fed him._

_The old man was fitful that night. When he finally quieted, just before sunrise, Noonien fell hard into sleep. When he awoke, it was past noon and Eli was staring at him from the next bed, his eyes sharp and clear. He smirked._

"_Good morning."_

_They ate breakfast, the old man chomping with gusto. As they finished, without looking at him, Eli covered Noonien's hand with his own._

"_I meant it when I said you could do it. You can. You will. You're the one. I can feel it." He snorted a wry laugh and met Noonien's eyes._

"_Not that that means jack shit, apparently. My old man Medhavi said the same thing to me, right before he assumed room temperature. I made it a good few years longer than he did, but I always knew this damn disease would get me in the end." He pushed his cleaned plate away and settled back against the pillows. "I hoped for a cure, of course, but I've never had much faith in doctors. And turns out I was right."_

_With that, Eli rolled over and fell asleep for good._

_o\O/o_

When Noonien Soong designed a cranial unit that could function independently of a body, it had been with the very best intentions. He thought the feature might come in handy someday — that it might even make the difference between life and death for one of his creations.

So it was a shame that the first time he used it, it was to no such purpose.

After opening E4's cervical portal and initiating cranial bypass, Noonien hesitated. It had been three days since B4's death, and he hadn't once left the lab. Juliana hadn't bothered him; sometimes he watched her blinking blue dot move from room to room on his locator screen. Twice it had approached the lab door and stopped, unmoving, for several seconds before slipping away again. All alone, Noonien didn't research, or sketch, or calculate, or build. And he didn't sleep much, either.

He read. Vulcan poetry, Klingon opera, Bajoran scripture. Amenamope, Rushdie, Angelou, Lu Xun. Vasya, Potok, Homer, Brontë, Consort Ban. Orion lovebooks, Bolian fables, Chandran mythology.

Now he opened Bee's storage closet, dragged the workchair around to face it, and activated E4's head.

"Look at him. My God, how could you do that to him?"

"We-ell," said E4's head, giving Noonien a condescending look of false concern, "I took your BP torch and raised the setting to maximum—"

"Don't look at me," Noonien ground out. "_Look at him."_ He was fully prepared to immobilize the android's eye muscles and force him to look at his brother, but E4 flicked his gaze carelessly over B4's ruined face, studying it without a flinch.

"Hmm. Looks like I missed his occipital relays."

Noonien slumped against the shelves, pressing a fist against his forehead. "I don't understand. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. What do you _want_ from me?" Noonien stood with a snarl and slammed his fist into the hard metal of the storage unit. B4's head wobbled on the shelf. He brought his bruised knuckles to his mouth, the pain fueling his anger. "How can you _be_ this way? Why did you turn out so _wrong?"_

E4 sighed. "You talk as if we're so different," he said reasonably. "You wanted me to be like _you_, didn't you? Gave me your needs, your moods, your passions. Your ambition." He smiled and the usual sneer crept back into his voice. "The only real difference is that _I_ have the brains and the fucking _balls_ to get what I want. _That_," he spat, indicating B4 with his eyes, "was a mercy killing. And spare me the grieving daddy shtick. I saw how you looked at him, sometimes — how you shooed him out of the room when Tom Handy visited. He was an _embarrassment_, wasn't he?" His voice lowered conspiratorially. "Don't tell me you never thought about doing it, yourself."

Noonien closed his mouth and swallowed, shaking his head.

"I would never — I'm not a murderer."

"Aren't you?"

It was getting hard to breathe. Noonien squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head more forcefully.

"_No."_

"Hmm. Maybe not — yet. But soon. Any minute now, in fact. Because _I'm_ dead meat. So to speak. Aren't I? That's what you woke me up to tell me, isn't it?" He grinned. "No second chance for this broken machine." His voice screeched up an octave. _"Off with his head!"_

"Second chance," Noonien whispered. _"Second chance?_ All those 'brains', and still the alphabet presents a challenge, _E?"_

E4 mirrored his father's sneer.

"Oh, I know my letters. And I can count, too. A_4_."

"How did y—"

E4 raised his voice over Noonien's. "Three sets of shoulders you've stood on to make it this far. Only, _whooops!_ Looks like you're just as much a failure as your daddy and his daddies before him. Because that's what I am, aren't I, Often Wrong? A failed fucking experiment—"

He saw Noonien's hand reaching for the micro-driver and his face began contorting helplessly, as if trying to squirm away from the approaching fingers.

"—well, you can't — I won't ever — because you — fuck you, _fuck_ you—!"

"Goodbye, boy."

"Goodbye? I doubt it, old man. Better make it _au revio—"_

The yellow eyes opaqued again and Soong turned his back on the deactivated android. He took a long look at B4. He brushed some scorched hair back into place and then gently closed him behind the closet door.

_I'll try to fix you, Bee — I promise I will. There's something I need to do first, but I'll come back to you, just as soon as there's time..._

He walked over to the east wall, where a massive bookshelf spanned the width and height of the room. The ladder's wheels squeaked as he pulled himself over to the far left corner. On the top shelf, behind _The Tempest,_ was a knothole. He held his thumb to it until it chirped and a narrow panel swished open, revealing an encryption pad set into the thick cement wall. He keyed in the access code, then hesitated. Quickly, he checked his pocket locator to verify Juliana was still in their bedroom. Only then did he unlock the panel. This wasn't the only secret he had from his wife — not by a long shot — but it was by far the deepest.

A hiss of cold air escaped as the narrow containment box rolled out between the books, extending a couple hand-spans beyond the shelves before clicking to a stop on its casters. Inside, the double row of little glass capsules tinkled musically. Noonien released an insulation clamp and held one pale yellow vial up to the light.

The blastocyst inside was invisible, of course, but in his mind's eye Noonien peered through the suspension fluid, past the trophectoderm layer and into the heart of clustered cells, each containing a nucleus in which a double helix hung frozen, beautiful — waiting.

A5. The seed of the next generation. The next desperate grasp at greatness.

_The next _me_._

He closed his fist around the cold glass and leaned his head against his books. Perhaps it was time. He had decades left in him, he knew that, but he couldn't go on like this. He was played out. A fresh perspective was needed — fresh eyes, fresh mind, fresh _blood_.

It would be so easy: barely the work of a day to locate a suitable surrogate. A week, maybe two, to negotiate a contract and arrange for her travel to Omicron Theta. He could perform the procedure himself. So easy. Flesh and blood. Something that was guaranteed to _work_, for once. So easy.

_Easy? Who said anything about _easy?_ I taught you better than that, boy._

His shaking hand tightened dangerously around the delicate glass. He knew that voice as well as his own. It had been with him all his life, and for the first time in his life he hated it.

Suddenly a new image blew through his mind like a warm sea breeze. A lovely picture of his young wife, smiling. Rounded and glowing, and smiling at him. A surge of longing took his breath away and he coughed a dry sob against the aging spines of his books. But he dismissed the image quickly; she would never agree to it — nor should she. No. That would only complicate matters. And yet... what if...

New life. Truly _new:_ small, helpless, _human_ — and half Juliana. Wasn't that the heart of what she had wanted for so long? A true _collaboration_. She was always pushing him to listen to her more, include her more, _love_ her more. She didn't understand; he had already sacrificed the pace and purity of his work simply by sharing it with her — simply by _marrying_ her. But that wasn't enough; it was never enough. Though she'd stopped reproaching him in words, he could still see the hurt in her eyes when he failed to give her enough signs and tokens and words of love. As if he constantly needed to prove that he loved her. Wouldn't this show her, once and for all, that he _did?_

_I warned you about this, Nu. This ruins everything, sooner or later. It isn't worth it. It's never worth it._

"Shut up," he said to the air, and began grinning so wide it hurt.

It was time. Time to turn the tide. Time to lay the old dream, the old men, to rest. There were other dreams to be dreamed — dreams that weren't impossible, dreams that would be his own. And hers. Yes. He would go to Juliana. She should just be stirring into wakefulness now. He would slip into their bed, pull her close... she loved waking up with his arms around her...

Perhaps they could begin today.

_No, no, no. It would all be for nothing. Don't you see? For nothing!_

Noonien nestled the yellow vial among its brothers again, and sent them all back into their hiding place.

"It's all right," he told them as he accessed the temperature controls. "At least you'll die warm."

_You're forgetting, __A__4. You _owe_ me. You owe _us.

"No," said A4. "I don't."

He depressurized the tiny chamber. He was watching the temperature slowly tick upward when the idea struck him. His eyes darted wildly back and forth.

A balance. What if he could strike a balance? Ability without ambition. Complexity without personality. No ego, no endless _needs needs needs_. Compliant. Steady. Safe. A means of collecting data, nothing more. Rather boring, actually, but oh well. Noonien would watch, and test, and record results — and then he would use the information to fix — to _perfect_ — the android who had failed. The android _he_ had failed.

Yes. Maybe he'd been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it's not strike-three and you're out. Maybe it's ball-four and you walk — and maybe the bases are loaded.

His fingers flew to dial the temperature back down. They trembled as he slipped _The Tempest_ back into place.

"I'm sorry," he said.

He wasn't sure to whom, or for what.

Then he shuffled down the ladder and left the lab.

_o\O/o_

"You're going to try again."

It wasn't a question.

"We can't give up on him, Juliana."

"I can."

He didn't answer. She sighed and surprised him by pulling his arms tighter around her waist. He took the cue and kissed the back of her head.

"Who will it be, next time?" she whispered. "Me?" She threaded his hands with her fingers and tilted her face slightly, brushing his nose with her neck. _"You?"_

"This time will be different. You'll see. I can save him." A familiar spark had crept into his whisper. "See, I have an idea—"

Her head sank back into the pillow.

"Stop. I don't want to hear it. I won't fight you, Noonien; you'll do what you want. As always. But I do have one piece of advice for you."

He pulled her even closer, his lips nuzzling her ear.

"I'm listening."

"This time, for God's sake, give him a _name."_

_o\O/o_

_o\O/o_

. . .

. . .

. . .

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

Yikes. The more I write the Soong family story, the sadder and more twisted it gets. Sorry about that. Or... you're welcome?

The title is taken from the indispensable "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin:

_They fuck you up, your mum and dad.  
__They may not mean to, but they do.  
__They fill you with the faults they had  
__And add some extra, just for you._

_But they were fucked up in their turn  
__By fools in old-style hats and coats,  
__Who half the time were soppy-stern  
__And half at one another's throats._

_Man hands on misery to man.  
__It deepens like a coastal shelf.  
__Get out as early as you can,  
__And don't have any kids yourself._

_._

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp" is a quote from the poem "Andrea del Sarto" by Robert Browning. Usually quoted in full, the famous sentence reads: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?".

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_Medhavi:_ Hindi name meaning _Wisdom. _However, in Indian mythology Medhavi was the son of a famous sage who had struck a bargain with the gods that his son Medhavi would live as long as a certain mountain stood. Made arrogant by his supposed immortality, Medhavi angered Dhanushaksha, who transformed into a wild buffalo and smashed the mountain to pieces. Immediately Medhavi fell down dead.

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**PLEASE review.**


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